John Preston reviews BBC Two's dramatic account of Margaret Thatcher's final
days in Downing Street and the return of ITV1's post modern comedy drama
Moving Wallpaper.

If you didn’t notice the caption giving the date at the start of Margaret (Thursday, BBC Two), and happened to glance at the screen through the steam rising from your TV-dinner, you might have assumed that this was a much more antique historical drama – one about Elizabeth I, say. On went a big ring onto a finger. Next, the camera dwelled lovingly on the majesty of her gown. Then the ruffs on her collar were carefully primped to attention. Only as the focus pulled back did you see that it wasn’t a Sun Queen at all, but Margaret Thatcher.

This, of course, was the point – one that was lent further weight by the one-word title. However, it also signalled the big problem that lay at the heart of Margaret. Just as this wasn’t the real Margaret Thatcher, nor was anything that followed sufficiently like her. In Richard Cottan’s script, Mrs Thatcher (Lindsay Duncan) had been given stridency in abundance, as well as an uneasy dollop of poignancy – but not much else. There simply wasn’t enough dramatic space in which she could spread and flourish.

Around the edges, though, everything was much more assured. Having started in 1990 with the Heseltine leadership bid, it then flashed back to 1975 when Mrs Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party. Thus one got the fall and the rise book-ended together. In darkened rooms, Heseltine (Oliver Cotton) and assorted plotters tentatively sounded one another out about the state of the leadership – all the time furiously denying their own ambitions.

While Cotton was very good as Heseltine, he was outshone – or perhaps that should be outdimmed – by an absolutely brilliant performance by John Sessions as Geoffrey Howe. Everything about it – the voice, the demeanour, the doleful decency – was perfect. As I watched it, I found myself remembering how the runaway winner in a 1980s Spectator competition to find the most unlikely opening line at a party had been, ‘Come in! Sir Geoffrey’s on sparkling form tonight.’

There were plenty of clever flourishes too – as when Mrs Thatcher was being coached on how to talk in a way that wouldn’t make vast swathes of would-be Tory voters stick their fingers in their ears: ‘You’re doing that teacher thing again.’ Then came the Eliza Doolittle moment: Mrs Thatcher lowered her voice, as well as her eyelashes, and said, ‘What people don’t realise about me is that I’m a very ordinary person.’

Then, every so often, there would be something so jarring that it made one question everything else. It was inconceivable, for instance, that Peter Morrison, Thatcher’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, would not have read the newspapers in the middle of her leadership battle – and that he would then take a hasty swig from a hip-flask. Buffoonery had been allowed to creep in.

And it was pushing it to suggest that Mrs Thatcher would have broken down in tears at her last Cabinet meeting. We know from people who were there that it was a very emotional occasion – but to have her so choked up that she was incapable of speech seemed to imply a fundamental misreading of her character.

By then, she’d had the obligatory introspective scene that lead players always get in big political/monarchical dramas. One could imagine the real Mrs Thatcher snorting in derision as her fictional counterpart talked falteringly about how ‘One was never really allowed to be a girl’ while growing up in Grantham.

As it went on, director James Kent allowed the crispness that had characterised the early stages to dissipate. Instead, everything became rather baggy, over-long and self-indulgent. So very much a mixed bag – with some brilliant bits, some very funny bits, some clumsy bits, and some bits that just wouldn’t wash no matter how long you immersed them in clear blue water.

Last year’s Moving Wallpaper (Friday, ITV1), was – I thought – a very sharply written and cleverly characterised comedy about a TV company making a crummy soap opera, Echo Beach. Unfortunately the Echo Beach bits were genuinely dreadful, uneasily strung between self-parody and unabashed tackiness.

Now Echo Beach has been ditched, which is fine because Moving Wallpaper is more than capable of standing on its own. As well as having a wonderful deadpan performance by Ben Miller as a vile yet strangely sympathetic director, the first half of last Friday’s opener was one of the best constructed pieces of comedy writing I have seen in years – each set-up dovetailing into another with great verve and ingenuity.

And the second half, you may, not unreasonably, wonder? That was pretty damn good too.